topic Re: proc tabulate with 2 nested variables for columns, 1 sorted ascending and 1 sorted descending in SAS Programming

proc tabulate with 2 nested variables for columns, 1 sorted ascending and 1 sorted descending

hein68 — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:12:57 GMT

Hello. I wrote some proc tabulate code that is working for me with continuous outcome variables but not categorical outcome variables. I would appreciate any help you can provide. The data is a long file where all IDs have a pre record and some IDs have a post record. Here is the code. I cannot drop it in, sorry.

proc tabulate data=data format=6.1 nosep order=internal;

class group / descending;

class time;

var contvar;

table contvar*(n mean std nmiss),group*time;

run;

How would I get a table with n and % for categorical variables by group (sorted ascending) and time (pre and post) sorted descending?

Thanks!

Re: proc tabulate with 2 nested variables for columns, 1 sorted ascending and 1 sorted descending

Tom — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 18:34:08 GMT

Didn't the DESCENDING keyword on the CLASS statement work?

It seems to work for me.

data have;
  do id=1 to 2;
    do group=1 to 3;
      do time=1 to 2;
        row+1;
        contvar=rand('integer',1000);
        output;
      end;
    end;
  end;
run;


proc tabulate data=have format=6.1 nosep ;  
  class group ;
  class time / descending;
  var contvar;
  table contvar*(n mean std nmiss),group*time;
run;

Re: proc tabulate with 2 nested variables for columns, 1 sorted ascending and 1 sorted descending

ballardw — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:30:34 GMT

@hein68 wrote:

Hello. I wrote some proc tabulate code that is working for me with continuous outcome variables but not categorical outcome variables. I would appreciate any help you can provide. The data is a long file where all IDs have a pre record and some IDs have a post record. Here is the code. I cannot drop it in, sorry.

proc tabulate data=data format=6.1 nosep order=internal;

class group / descending;

class time;

var contvar;

table contvar*(n mean std nmiss),group*time;

run;

How would I get a table with n and % for categorical variables by group (sorted ascending) and time (pre and post) sorted descending?

Thanks!

Since your Proc Tabulate code does not use any variable called ID why do you include " where all IDs have a pre record and some IDs have a post record. " That bit of trivia apparently has no obvious connection to this problem. If you are discussing the role of a variable then name the variable.

If you want Group to be ascending then why did you have the option /descending for the Group variable? The default for class variables is "ascending" but if you have a FORMAT applied to the variable(s) things may appear as if they are not ordered.

Strong hint: provide some example data in the form of a working data step and if your actual data has custom formats applied then the definitions of the formats, or at least enough to work with the example data.

Re: proc tabulate with 2 nested variables for columns, 1 sorted ascending and 1 sorted descending

Ksharp — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:34:08 GMT

As ballardw said, it would be better if you could post some data and the desired output report.
So we can test your code and get output .